Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss (10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss's academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology. Today, he is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline; particularly with respect to his analyses of topics such as magic, sacrifice and gift exchange in different cultures around the world. Mauss had a significant influence upon Claude Lévi-Strauss, the founder of structural anthropology. His most famous book is The Gift (1925). Tossup Questions # Geoffrey MacCormack criticized this thinker for his imprecision in conflating the "personality" of an object with a Maori term called the "hau". He wrote an essay describing actions which are "effective and traditional", including walking and positioning the hands at rest, that he called "body techniques". That essay by this man inspired Norbert Elias's later work on habitus. His most famous book describes a concept which is imbued with "spiritual mechanisms", the most notable of which is reciprocity, in a phenomenon he called (*) "total prestation". That book by this man employs Malinowski's analysis of the kula ring, which he compares to the potlatch system of exchanging the title objects. For 10 points, name this nephew of Emile Durkheim who wrote The Gift. # Maurice Godelier criticized this man for failing to consider the aspect of production in a work on "The Enigma of" a text by this thinker. His uncompleted doctoral thesis, On Prayer, defines prayer as a religious rite which is oral and bears directly on the sacred and attempts to distinguish it from incantation. In a work coauthored by this man, he discusses an impersonal power source of Melanesia from which the "sacred" derives, (*) mana. Despite presupposing a dichotomy between magic and religion, this man ultimately laid the groundwork for removing it in A General Theory of Magic, a work co-authored with Henri Hubert. His most famous work was a large influence behind Levi-Strauss' structural anthropology and describes the titular concept of"total prestation," in which the passing on of wealth imposes an obligation to reciprocate. For 10 points, name this French sociologist who wrote The Gift. # This man's work was questioned by James Laidlaw, who used examples of Jains in a rebuttal. His most notable work shares a title with a Lewis Hyde book subtitled Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. This writer discussed the Maori concept of taonga and the potential loss of mana. With an older relative, this man co-wrote the book Primitive Classification. In one work, he claimed the title concept was part of a "system of total prestation" imbued with "spiritual mechanisms." The nephew of Emile Durkheim and teacher of Claude Levi-Strauss, this man's most famous book describes such rituals as the potlatch system and argues that loss of status emerges with failure to engage in reciprocal exchange. For 10 points, name this French sociologist who wrote The Gift. # This man attacked Georges Sorel's support of Bolshevism and Fascism in the series of articles "Observations on Violence." With Henri Beauchat, he published a "study in social morphology" about Eskimos, while another collaboration led to a work that analyzed the titular action as a "means of communication between the sacred and profane worlds" via a piaculum. The work Outline of a General Theory of Magic was written by this thinker and Henri Hubert, who also helped him on (*) Sacrifice: It's Nature and Function. This man is better known for a work which uses the concept of "total prestations" or "total social facts" in investigating the economic and social implications of such exchange systems as the kula ring and potlachs. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, this is, for 10 points, what French sociologist and anthropologist who wrote The Gift? # Norbert Elias drew on one of this man's theories to explain the concept of habitus; that theory is the idea that non-discursive actions, like hand gestures, complete embody objects of culture and is called the "technique of the body." He drew on fieldwork conducted by Bronislaw Malinowski to write his most notable work. This man's most famous essay was written about (*) items which are infused completely with the identity of their original owners, meaning they cannot be totally alienated from them, which embodies the concept of "total prestation," preventing them from being free from the expectation of reciprocity. For 10 points, name this author of The Gift, a French sociologist.